


Where The Love Light Gleams

by laurynmakay



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, Doctor Gilbert Blythe, F/M, Gilbert Blythe makes a terrible first impression, Holidays, Journalist Anne Shirley, mary is alive
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:54:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28101228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurynmakay/pseuds/laurynmakay
Summary: Anne Shirley-Cuthbert was not having the merriest of Christmases. She over-worked and exhausted and worst of all, her flight home to Green Gables for the holidays keeps getting delayed later and later. And if being trapped in the airport for Christmas wasn’t bad enough, a very obnoxious and unfortunately, very handsome man won’t leave her alone to wallow in her misery. Can two stranded strangers find a little joy in an otherwise blue Christmas?
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 6
Kudos: 68





	1. I'll Be Home For Christmas

Not for the first time in her life, Anne was late. She was running full speed through a crowded airport, shoes soaked with melting snow, desperate to reach her gate before the plane took off. It looked like a storm was brewing and she was afraid that if she missed this flight, she wouldn’t be able to get home for days. And she needed to get home. It was nearly midnight on December twenty third. She was planning on sleeping on the plane and then when she woke up when it landed, she would be refreshed and ready to spend all day Christmas Eve baking with Marilla. Anne had begged her boss to let her get off work a day early or even just a few hours so she would be sure to make it home, but they happened to run late on the wort day possible. Anne worked for one of the biggest newspapers in Canada, which unfortunately was located on the opposite side of the country from Prince Edward Island. It would be easier to tolerate being so far away from family if she didn’t hate her job. All she did all day was run around doing errands for her boss, Josephine. The closest she got to real journalism these days was skimming other reporters work for typos one last time before they were sent to print. Anyway, her shitty boss from her shitty job was the reason she was sprinting through the Vancouver airport, dragging her suitcase that she wasn’t even sure was fully zipped with red hair flying behind her.

She had just reached the gate when she saw the flight attendant grab the intercom and say, “The twelve-a.m. flight to Prince Edward Island has been delayed due to weather. Please standby for further information.” Anne slumped down in the nearest chair and pulled out her phone to call Marilla and tell her she’d be running late, if she even made it at all. Marilla was understanding, of course, it wasn’t Anne’s fault the impending storm would prevent the planes from taking off, but she was really upset she wouldn’t get to see her little girl for Christmas. It had been so long since Anne had been home. Anne was glad she wouldn’t have to see the disappointment on Matthew’s face when Marilla told him Anne wouldn’t make it. Anne winced at the thought. Matthew and Marilla were her only family in the world, and she was so lonely without them. Matthew’s health had been dwindling these past few years, Anne was starting to worry they wouldn’t have many Christmases left to spend together. Anne hung up the phone and took a few gasping breaths, trying not to cry.

She was trying to distract herself by checking the weather radar when she heard someone say, “Excuse me?” She assumed it was someone trying to get the attention of the flight attendant at the desk, so she ignored it and kept scrolling. That is until some gave a light tug at one of her curls and the same voice saying, “Hey Carrots, I’m talking to you.” If Anne had been more well rested and not dealing with the heartbreak of missing her favorite holiday, she may have handled things better. But instead she jumped out of her chair and spun to face the man at her side.

“What is your problem?” she yelled. She clenched her hands into fists at her sides. Resisting the urge to whack him across the face with whatever she could reach. What kind of person not only rudely interrupts a woman who was already upset, but also feels the need to pull her hair and call her names when his initial strategy of getting her attention didn’t work? The man was too stunned to respond for a moment, so Anne took the opportunity to examine him, scowling. He was tall, really tall, with messy dark curls and a crooked smirk. He was dressed in a nice, black suit, a clean white shirt, and the ugliest Christmas tie she had ever seen. Seriously, it looked like something an elf would throw up. But the main thing she noticed was that he was hot. No, that wasn’t right, this guy was straight up handsome. Like star of a cheesy rom-com level gorgeous. And by the looks of his infuriating grin, he was well aware of that fact.

His smile dropped immediately when her saw her brows furrow and her face turn red. “Whoa, sorry, I was just trying to get your attention. You seemed kinda out of it.” He gave a nervous chuckle and wrung his hands.

“What do you want?” she snapped.

“I’m sorry, I was just… wondering if I could use your phone? Mine is dead and I’d really like to call my family, tell them my flights been delayed. I… I promise it’ll only take a minute or two.” She glanced down at the phone in her hand and contemplated handing it over. Goddamn it, he was cute when he stuttered nervously like that. Regardless, Anne was still mad at the asshole. But it was almost Christmas and she understood how frustrating it was to have a flight canceled. Also, there was something dark that passed behind his eyes when he paused for a second before saying ‘family’ that made Anne feel sorry for him, and a bit curious.

“Yeah, fine.” She shrugged, like it was no big deal, suddenly calm after just screaming at the man and held out her phone. “But if you take more than ten minutes, I’m reporting you to airport security for theft.” He wrapped both of his hands around her hand and the phone and gave a little shake. His hands were really warm and slightly callused against her skin, still cold from the wind outside. It may have been a reassuring gesture, if it wasn’t so weird for two strangers in this situation.

“Alright, fair. I’ll just be a minute, I swear.” The man took the phone and walked a few steps away before dialing. He was just far enough away that Anne couldn’t quite hear everything he said and nothing from the other end of the call, not that she was trying to listen or anything. She heard him talk about the weather and the plane being delayed and about not having any more information. He said ‘sorry’ about a thousand times and Anne had to try not to smile every time he did because he pronounced it funny, like he leaned into the ‘oh’ sound. He said some ‘me toos’ and ‘I don’t knows’ and then he was quiet for a while, listening. If she looked closely, she could see his eyes tear up just the slightest bit.

She studied him while he talked. He really was gorgeous, but Anne was more interested in the details of his appearance. She blamed the writer in her more than any personal interest she had in him, that would be ridiculous, he was an asshole. The man, she realized she never caught his name, was an interesting subject to study, he was full of contradictions. His suit was quite nice, but his shoes looked old and worn. He had one small black suitcase that looked brand new and old, leather bag next to it, like the kind old-timey doctors used to carry. And his very put-together appearance was contrasted the heavily tousled head of curls, like he had a habit of running his fingers through his hair and not bothering to smooth it back down afterwards.

After tracing each curl with her eyes, they naturally fell to study his face, which to put it in the simplest of terms, was a masterpiece. The sharpest jawline she had actually ever seen, magnificent cheek bones, and dark lashes framing the most beautiful brown eyes. They were kind eyes, but there was a deep layer of something dark and sad behind them. He also had very dark, very expressive eyebrows. Every time he paused to listen to something on the other end of the phone, they would furrow together and make a little crease between his eyes, or one brow would lift in a question that who ever he was talking to couldn’t even see. Overall, he was a marvelous specimen and for some reason, that infuriated her. How and why would a man that seemed like he would be so kind, a man that was nearly crying on the phone with his family, be such a douche to her. Arrogant and rude and aggressive. Anne’s head was spinning.

In the end, he was on her phone for about twenty minutes, but Anne didn’t bother to give him a hard time about it. It looked like an important phone call. He handed her back her phone and gave a long babbling speech about nothing in which he said thank you about four times. She said a simple, “No problem.” But he didn’t walk away. Just stood there staring at her.

After a long, awkward pause, he said, “I’m Gilbert.” Anne didn’t know what was happening, so she just responded with her name. He held out his hand to shake hers, which seemed like a weird thing to do considering he had already grabbed her hands while taking her phone just twenty minutes ago, but Anne reached out and shook his hand anyway. They stood in silence for another minute before he said, “Thanks again.” And walked away.

Anne was very confused about everything that had just happened, but she sat back in her chair and pulled out her Kindle she had packed for reading on the plane, just to distract herself. Anne used to carry actual books everywhere, but she read so fast she would end up with two or three books in her bag wherever she went and after a while that just got heavy and bothersome so she begged Marilla for a Kindle for Christmas one year. It was much more efficient this way. The man, Gilbert, had taken a seat on the other side of the gate, which was not very far away as they were preparing to board a pretty small plane. Anne wasn’t watching him per-se but if she looked up from her reading every once and a while and it happened to be in his direction. It couldn’t be helped.  
***

Hours passed and the flight to Prince Edward Island kept getting pushed later and later. Anne’s book was slowly running out of pages, and she was starting to worry she'd never make it home. She kept watching Gilbert. Not intentionally, of course. She didn't really know why, but every time she tried to look back down to her book, a few minutes later, her eyes would be pulled back up to watch him. She didn't know why she was so drawn to the rude man she couldn't focus on anything else. She'd have to reread pages of her book over and over and still not get the meaning.

Around two am, Anne looked up from her book to see that Gilbert was no longer in his seat. She looked around curiously, wondering where he had gone, checking the flight attendant’s desk, and around at the nearby gates. After a few minutes, she gave up and went back to her reading, but was startled when out of nowhere there was someone standing right in front of her. She looked up to see Gilbert juggling two cups of coffee from the café in the food court. He checked the labels on the cups more times than should be necessary, then held one out to her.

“I still felt awkward about what happened earlier and like I was maybe a bit rude, so I figured I'd offer up a peace offering. I didn't know your coffee order and I didn't want to spoil the surprise by asking so I just guessed. It's a peppermint mocha with whip… You seemed like you'd like something sweet. And festive,” he said, eyeing her green sweater and shiny red Christmas bow earrings. Then he winked at her. He actually winked at her. But she took the coffee from his hand and sipped it carefully, making sure not to burn her tongue. She closed her eyes as the coffee hit her soul, but she didn’t react any other way. It was none of his business if he had actually guessed her favorite beverage.

“That's redundant,” she said. He furrowed his brows. “You said offer up and then you said peace offering, using the word offer twice in one sentence is redundant.” He laughed at her then, and his smile was one of the most incredible things she had ever seen. It made her stomach feel weird and nauseous. Anne still didn't know why this complete stranger had such a strange effect on her. “And you were definitely rude.” Anne motioned to the chair next to her and he sat down.


	2. You Can Count On Me

Gilbert Blythe knew at that moment that he was screwed. Earlier, when he saw the clearly insane and stunningly beautiful woman sprinting through the airport, he was immediately intrigued. Her bright red hair streaming behind her, a sharp contrast to her green sweater. She had a bag in one hand, a suitcase in the other, and her boarding pass was precariously peeking out of the back pocket of her jeans. When she collapsed dramatically in a seat across the gate from him, he knew he had to talk to her. And he didn’t technically lie when he told her that his phone was dead, it was plugged in and wasn’t fully charged yet. It was the best excuse he could come up with. The plan, which had obviously failed, had been to politely get her attention and ask to use her phone. But then she didn’t hear him the first time he spoke. His next idea was to just give a little tug on her hair and make a joke. It was supposed to be funny. It was supposed to be charming, and it was not perceived that way at all. But the second she yelled at him, he was halfway in love already.

His phone call with Bash and Mary had been much more intense than he had thought it would be. They were the only family he had left, and he already knew too well how precious time with family was. He really didn’t want to spend Christmas alone on the other side of the country. 

Bash had answered the phone on the third ring and immediately put him on speaker so Mary could hear too. They were in the kitchen. Gilbert could hear the occasional clink of dishes. Mary was probably baking more cookies than their little family could ever eat alone, and Bash was likely stealing cookie dough under the guise of helping. They sounded so excited to hear from him, but Mary’s joy audibly dropped when he told them he may not make it home. He started desperately apologizing but Mary shut him down quickly, saying, “Oh baby, it's not your fault, you can’t control the weather.” Mary went on to tell him that they love him, and that they miss him, and that they’ll be ready and waiting to pick him up from the airport whenever he made it there. What broke him was when he heard Dellie start crying in the background. Mary and Bash’s little miracle baby and he was missing out on watching her grow up. They both told him that they loved him and wished him a safe flight a few more times before Bash said, “See you soon, brother.” And hung up. 

Gilbert knew that the woman had been watching him while he was on the phone. He had turned away, just slightly, not wanting her to see the tears that were burning his eyes. He had to pause and take a few deep breaths before he could turn back and face her. The moment he saw her face again, those gigantic blue eyes staring up at him, it’s like his brain turned to mush. He knows that he gave her phone back and then he thinks that he babbled on for a while and then he thinks he just kind of stood there. Eventually, he shook himself out of his stupor enough to introduce himself. 

“Anne Shirley-Cuthbert,” she responded. He shook her hand and tried not to get lost in the feeling of her soft skin on his. He stood there another minute not knowing what to say. So, he just thanked her again and went back to his seat, feeling a little defeated. His attempts to talk to her were thwarted by his inability to actually talk when faced with such a beautiful woman. 

Gilbert spent hours replaying the interaction in his mind, trying to think of a way he could try again, less disastrously this time. He needed an ice breaker, a reason to go back over, and hopefully something that won’t make her yell at him again. On a whim, he guessed at her coffee order (coffee makes everything better) and brought it over to her. She thanked him by correcting his grammar. That’s when he knew he was totally screwed. The only thing better than a gorgeous woman was a fiery redhead with a temper that had already decided she was smarter than him. 

“Are you a doctor?” She asked between sips, “Or do you just play one on TV?” she gestured to his old leather bag. He laughed. 

“I am a doctor. An oncologist, to be specific, though I’m mostly in research now. The bag was a gift from my mentor a few years back on his retirement. A gift, to remind me when I’m up in a lab all day of the reason I started my career in the first place, of the patients I’m helping. It is an old medical bag, over a hundred years old I think.” He stared at the bag while he spoke, and when he finished, he looked up at Anne, into her eyes. They had a funny look in them, something… soft. 

“Why did you? Become a doctor, I mean.” Gilbert ran his fingers through his hair, messing it up even more. Anne had a strange urge to reach up and straighten the curl that fell in the center of his forehead. She clasped her hands tighter around her coffee cup to keep them in place. Gilbert sighed. 

“That’s really not a story I like to tell, especially to people I’ve just met… Sorry, I--” She stopped him with a brush of her fingers over the back of his wrist, then snapped her hand back to her lap immediately. She had startled even herself with the action. 

“I didn’t mean to pry. I understand having a past you're not so ready to share with strangers. You do not have to tell me anything you don’t want to.” Her voice was soft and the sound of it seemed to release some of the tension Gilbert was carrying in his shoulders. He was speechless for a moment. He felt like this woman that he had just met had instantly understood him better than anyone else in his life. 

“Thank you… I, um… So, what do you do for a living?” he asked, trying to shift the topic of conversation in a casual manner. She smiled at his awkwardness. 

“I'm a journalist.” She paused to take a sip of her coffee. “Well, in theory.” 

“In theory?” He quirked an eyebrow higher than Anne had ever seen one go. 

“In theory, because although I do work for a newspaper, I don’t actually get to do much writing. It's mostly just fixing typos and running papers from room to room.” Anne tried not to wince at the thoughts of how hard her boss worked her without giving her time for any real journalism. 

“If you could write anything in the world, anything at all, and have your editor print it with no changes, what would it be?”

“Oh God, I don’t even know. I haven't bothered to think about it in so long. Let's see, I became a journalist in the first place because I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to help give a voice to people who have had theirs talked away. I wrote a piece in high school about rape culture and how society teaches gender roles from an early age. I'd love to revamp that, but then there are so many other important issues to cover. I mean, there's racial equality and access to higher education and people that don’t even have clean water and immigrants from war-torn countries that just want a fresh start, and…” Anne was practically bouncing in her seat. She had to pause to catch her breath. “How could I choose just one?”

“That’s very noble of you. And it’s very similar to how I feel about medicine. There is so much death and suffering. But I have to remember that I’m just one man. So, If I can make one person feel better, ease their pain, give them more time with their loved ones, I know that I have made the world a better place.” Anne smiled and Gilbert was afraid that he was becoming addicted to the sight. “But you’ve got the job at the newspaper, surely that’s leasing toward a job with more writing involved?”

“You would think, wouldn’t you? Honestly, I’m not even sure if I got this job from my own merit or some complicated form of nepotism.” Anne slumped back in her chair and rubbed her temple.

“How so?” Anne had to admit, it was very charming how much he was leaning forward, so interested in what she had to say. Gorgeous, charming, altruistic… Anne was starting to think she was in danger. 

“My boss, the editor, Josephine Barry, is the great aunt or something of my best friend. When I applied to work for the paper, I explicitly told Diana, my friend, not to say anything and she swore she wouldn’t. But if I know my best friend at all, I know that she will always do the exact opposite of what she is told, especially if she thinks she is helping someone. Which I suppose is a trait she learned from me. She was the biggest rule-follower before we met. I got the job within a week, didn’t even have to interview. So now I’ll never know if I got the job because of my talents or my connections.”

“I guess that’s just how life works. I got my oncology residency with a doctor I’d know my whole life. I don’t think it’s a terrible thing to take advantage of the opportunities life gives us.” Anne was about to ask why he knew an oncologist growing up, but when she opened her mouth to speak, a yawn took over instead. Gilbert checked his watch. “Wow, it's two-thirty A.M. already. If you wanna take a nap or something, I can watch over your stuff and I can wake you if there’s any updates on when we’ll get out of here.”

Anne was exhausted. Apparently, even a full cup of coffee didn’t have enough caffeine to keep her awake after the long day she’d had. She rubbed her eyes and gave herself a moment to contemplate the offer. “That’s really nice of you but I’m fine. Besides, there’s no way I could sleep in these awful chairs.” She was already starting to feel stiff and sore from sitting.

“Hmm,” he looked around. “How about we go sit over by the windows. I betcha between the two of us we got enough coats and neck pillows and chunky sweaters that you could lie down and be comfy enough.” Anne thought it over while stretching her sore neck and shoulders. At first, she wasn’t sure she could trust a man she had just met in an airport, but he was a doctor, and he had bought her coffee. By all accounts, he seemed friendly and genuine enough. 

“That actually kinda sounds amazing right now. I have had the longest day.” They gathered up all of their things and moved them over to the big wall of windows that faced the planes on the taxiways. 

It was pitch black outside, but there were lights on every building and vehicle out there that shone bright enough to see the large clumps of snowflakes as they fell. Anne had to take a moment to just appreciate the sight. It was incredibly beautiful, even if it was the reason she was stuck in an airport. She watched as Gilbert put together a makeshift bed for her. And he was kind of a master at it. First, he spread out both of their coats over the carpet parallel to the windows, his that had been draped over the back of his chair and then hers. Then, he took their two neck pillows and slotted them together. he wrapped the pillows in a massive, tan-colored sweater that he pulled from his carry-on bag. Anne took a cardigan out of her own suitcase to use as a blanket. Once she was settled in, it was quite comfortable. Gilbert sat leaning against the window by her head, with the rest of their things by his other side. 

“What about you?” Anne asked, “Are going to be okay without any rest?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’m used to long shifts at the hospital.”

“Okay, well, wake me up if you want to take a turn sleeping, I can watch the stuff. Oh, and wake me up if you hear anything of course.”

Anne pulled her cardigan/blanket up to her chin and closed her eyes. Sleep came to her quickly as she had been more tired than she thought, but right before she drifted off, she thought she felt warm fingers brush one of her curls away from her face. Anne fell asleep feeling warmer and safer than she had in a while.


End file.
